THE MONSTER:
Johnson & Johnson is likely the most recognizable household brand in the entire world. They’ve been
around since 1886 and they dominate dozens of industries from pharmaceuticals and medical
devices to consumer health and baby shampoo. They’re currently the 9th largest company in
the world coming in at a monstrous marketcap of $432 billion. But, it’s not just their
marketcap that’s monstrous because really, the entire company is monstrous. While their fluffy
white baby powder and no tears shampoo come of as seemingly harmless, if you look at their history,
you’ll quickly find that the company is anything but that. Like any corporate giant, J&J has
been willing to pull whatever strings and go to whatever lengths to maximize their marketshare and
profits. Whenever someone like Apple or Microsoft does this, while it’s frowned upon by consumers,
it’s usually not that big of deal. Worst case scenario, you end up with an iPhone that you can’t
repair or software that’s filled with bloatware. But, when a healthcare company like J&J does this,
the consequences are much more deadly literally. Over the years, J&J has been allegedly responsible
for the death and suffering of millions of people. And to make things worse, these disastrous
consequences were often not a result of an honest mistake or oversight. More times than not, they
were a result of negligence and ignorance. This is why many argue that J&J has the bloodiest hands in
the fortune 500. But, how did “a family company” evolve into being such a ruthless predator?
WHOLESOME BEGINNINGS:
Taking a look back, Johnson & Johnson did start off as a wholesome family business. As the name
suggests, it was founded by the Johnson family, but there were actually three Johnsons in the
business, not just two. This included the brothers Robert Wood Johnson I, James Wood Johnson,
and Edward Mead Johnson. While J&J did start of a family business, it never really went through
that stage of being a bootstrapped garage startup. You see, Robert was already a pretty
successful businessman having founded a company called Seabury & Johnson while produced sterile
surgery equipment. By 1878, this company alone was producing $10,000/month in profits. That
itself is a solid number, but when you account for inflation, it becomes $296,000 per month. So,
yeah, Robert was killing it. Unfortunately though, the founders would end up having a disagreement
and Robert would eventually leave the business, but not before becoming extremely wealthy. Combine
this with the fact that his brothers were well off and talented in their own right and starting
up Johnson & Johnson was a breeze. The trio had capital, knowledge, experience, and connections
from day 1, so they hit the ground running. They hired 14 employees and launched a line of
ready to use surgical supplies and that marked the beginning of J&J in 1886. Over the next few years,
the brothers aggressively grew their product line and made history within the surgical industry.
They produced the world’s first sterile surgical products including sterile sutures, cotton, and
gauze. And in 1894, they launched their signature baby powder. By this point, J&J had only been in
business for a mere 8 years, but they were already employing 400 people and running 14 buildings. Not
to mention, they were already becoming a household name. But, just because they were successful
didn’t mean that they were evil or unethical. In fact, there’s very little evidence suggesting
that any of the brothers had ill intentions or immoral motivations. There’s actually a bunch
of evidence suggesting the exact opposite. During the Spanish-American war for example,
J&J donated 300,000 surgical dressings and created trauma stretchers for the soldiers. They also made
substantial donations to the relief efforts of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane and the 1906
San Francisco Earthquake. And these weren’t just for publicity either, and you could tell based on
how they treated their employees. For example, when the 1901 smallpox epidemic hit, J&J would
sponsor the vaccination of all their employees. Similarly, during the great depression, J&J didn’t
even lay off a single employee. They actually raised wages by 5%. J&J was also ahead of their
time when it came to incorporating women into the workforce. 8 out of their first 14 employees were
women. And over the decades, women accounted for roughly half of the company’s workforce and led
a quarter of their departments. But then, how did such an innovative, forward thinking, and
generous company devolve into what they are today? Well, it all started with the brothers dying off
one by one. Robert was the first to go in 1910, dying of chronic kidney disease. 22 years later,
James would actually die while returning from a vacation on the RMS Majestic. And finally, in
1934, Edward would pass away from a heart attack. Within just 10 years of the last founder dying,
J&J would be taken public in 1944, and that marked the beginning of their moral freefall.
SLOW DETERIORATION:
Johnson & Johnson didn’t just become immoral overnight though. After all, the company was
led by the brothers’ children who carried many of the same values and principles as the brothers’
themselves. In fact, when the company was taken public, Robert’s son, Robert Wood Johnson II,
wrote an ethical guidelines book called “Our Credo”. This document outlined how choices had
been made at the company for the past 60 years, and how they should continue being made moving
forward. Essentially, the Credo advises leaders at the company to put the needs and well-being
of the people they serve over profits. And it looks like this is what they were doing at the
beginning. A perfect example of this was the Chicago Tylenol deaths. In 1982, 7 indiviuals
in the Chicago metropolitan area would all die shortly after taking Extra Strength Tylenol. It
turns out that someone had taken the Tylenol off store shelves, laced them with cyanide,
and then put them back up. After hearing about this, J&J didn’t even hesitate to recall all
31 million bottles of Tylenol on store shelves and replace them with new Tylenol that came in
tamper proof packaging. This immediate action was praised around the world as being the gold
standard for corporate crisis management. But, with time, it seems that J&J has drifted further
and further away from this gold standard starting off with small infractions here and
there. A perfect example of this is the illegal marketing of Risperdal. If you’re not familiar
with Risperdal, it’s an antipsychotic that’s used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder,
and irritability caused by autism. Risperdal has been instrumental for many people over the years,
but like any medication, it comes with side effects and is not applicable to everyone.
One group of people that should not take Risperdal is older adults with dementia related psychosis.
And this was crystal clear since the medication was approved by the FDA in 1994. Nonetheless,
J&J paid Omnicare who is the largest pharmaceutical supplier for nursing
homes to promote Risperdal. And it wasn’t till a whistleblower outed J&J in 2010 that they
got caught. And the penalty for this despicable behavior was a mere $2.2 billion. For perspective,
J&J profits $20 billion per year which means that this penalty cost them a little more than a month
of their current profits. This is just the tip of the iceberg though. J&J has also been linked
with foreign bribery. Apparently, they’re sales reps paid doctors in Greece, Poland,
and Romania to sell medication and medical devices. They also bribed officials in Iraq to
win contracts. The fine for all of this? A measly $78 million. Aside from this, J&J has also gotten
a lot more aggressive when it comes protecting their patents. When we’re talking about patents
relating to medical devices and medications, that’s atleast understandable. They usually have
to invest hundreds of millions if not billions to create these products, so it makes sense that
they don’t want to get ripped off right after launch. Something that doesn't make sense though
is that fact that J&J has previously tried to prevent the American Red Cross from using the Red
Cross. If you didn’t know, J&J actually owns the trademark for the Red Cross symbol, and in 2007,
they sued the American Red Cross to stop using the emblem. Yeah, I don’t think anything more has to
be said about that. While these petty lawsuits, corruption, and marketing are inexcusable in
themselves, it turns out that J&J actually had much darker secrets behind the curtains.
BECOMING THE PREDATOR:
One of the biggest lawsuits that has plagued J&J recently is the baby powder lawsuit. It is
alleged that the talc based powder that is iconic to their baby powder is actually contaminated with
asbestos. The obvious reasoning for this is that the mines in which talc is mined are often lined
with asbestos. So, it’s only natural that the talc is also contaminated with asbestos. But, it was
assumed that J&J had procedures and protocols in place to ensure that asbestos wouldn’t show
up in the final product. J&J of course insists that they do have such proecdures in place and
they deny all allegations. But, this didn’t stop 40,000 cancer patients from banding together and
filing lawsuits against J&J. And the evidence that has surfaced since then is disturbing to say the
least. Allegedly, J&J found asbestos in their talc multiple times as early as 1972, but they didn’t
even notify the FDA. Instead of making change though, J&J has opted to use legal loopholes
to avoid liability which came to light just earlier this year through Reuters. Apparently,
J&J created a highly confidential plan called “Project Plato”. The plan entailed creating a
new subsidiary and then shifting all the lawsuits to this new subsidiary. From there, the subsidiary
would declare bankruptcy which would push the cases to bankruptcy court and substantially
reduce payouts. There are even allegations that J&J tried to get a federal judge to block Reuters
from publishing their findings. I don’t know about you, but that’s highly sus to say the least and
that’s not the only scandal that J&J has been caught up in either. J&J has also been embroiled
in opioid lawsuits for the past several years as well. If you’re not familiar with opioids,
its a substance that acts on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects. It’s usually used
in pain relief medications and anesthesia and it can be instrumental when used properly. But,
if it ends up in the wrong hands, it can quickly lead to drug addictions and deaths due
to overdose. You would think that pharmaceutical companies would be extremely careful when it came
to distributing opioids, but they were actually doing the exact opposite. Between 2006 and 2015,
opioid companies spent $880 million on lobbying efforts to keep opioids easily
accessible. Fortunately, all of this did eventually come to light and pharmaceutical
companies including J&J agreed to a settlement of $26 billion at the beginning of this year,
but this doesn’t really mean anything because the damage has already been done. Since 1999, 760,000
people have died due to drug overdose and ⅔ of these deaths in 2018 involved opioids. Personally,
I don’t think J&J can ever wipe their hands clean after this one.
SPREAD THE WORD: Nowadays, it’s become extremely
popular to hate on the biggest tech companies in the world whether that be Apple, Google,
or Facebook. But what I think we really need to focus on is these background companies that no one
ever talks about or questions. Such companies aren’t just collecting our data or selling
us overpriced products. They’re literally ruining lives, and that’s not my opinion,
that’s a fact. Not all the lawsuits we discussed in this video are complete, but many of them are,
and you can go online and read about just how ignorant and complacent all these pharmaceutical
have been and just how little consequences they face for their actions. After hearing this, I know
a lot of you guys will want these companies to be shut down myself included, but realistically,
that’s just not possible. While many of these companies engage in terrible behavior,
they’re also instrumental to the medical industry, so it’s not possible to ditch them all at the same
time. What may be possible though is to hold them more accountable by spreading the word. And
that might just get them to think twice before engaging in such behavior in the future. But,
that’s just what I think. Did you realize just how monstrous these pharmaceutical companies
are? Comment that down below. Also, drop a like if you hope that these companies feel
the pain for once. And of course, consider checking out our discord community to suggest
future video ideas and consider subscribing to see more questions logically answered.